Corsage (15)
****
Corsage is a kind of drab fantasia about a year in the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria - beginning in December 1877, when she turned 40.
Married at 16, possessor of an 18-inch waist, and the provider of a male heir to Emperor Franz Joseph 1 (Teichtmeister), she was Austria's longest-serving Empress. At least that's what it says on her Wikipedia page;
Kreutzer's film isn't much interested in the facts. Her protagonist is a creature of mood and so is her film. But it's a mood of foreboding and frustration; Empress Sisi travels constantly, but everywhere is overcast and gloomy. Her life is one of aimless pursuits, small rebellions and coping with constant scrutiny, criticism and sniping.
Anachronisms are an essential accoutrement of any period drama these days, but Kreutzer’s film is relatively restrained on this score: just the odd twentieth-century pop song and, most notably, a scene set on board a modern-day cruise liner.
It is though defiantly not tied to particulars of the time; you suspect that research into the period was not extensive. Were Viennese royal quarters quite as dreary as seen here? Some scenes look like they were filmed in a derelict squat.
The chief glory is the central performance. Holding her own against Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Fred was a big deal, but this is Krieps' defining role. She is the whole film, in every scene, and she's never quite the same in any one of them. Here she is radiant and glowing, then she is pale and empty; she is strikingly beautiful, then resolutely plain; luminous then blotchy; feminine and masculine. She radiates intelligence and wit, but can be facile, spiteful and mean.
Her Empress Sisi is assailed on all sides, with everybody checking to see if she's put on weight, lost her looks, showing her age. Every time she tries to wriggle free of the confinement, someone pops up to put her back in place. This is particularly heartbreaking when it is her own pre-pubescent daughter rebuking her for not being suitably grown up and refined.
Empress Sisi is a free spirit trapped by the conventions that she married into. The poster and trailer suggest a rebel, but ultimately she seems like a beaten figure. Kreutzer’s film does though offer her a little bit of freedom.
Directed by Marie Kreutzer. Starring Vicky Krieps, Florian Teichtmeister, Katerina Lorenz, Jeanne Werner, Alma Hasun, Aaron Friesz and Colin Morgan. In cinemas on Boxing Day. Running time: 114 mins.
The Kingdom Exodus
***
Lars Von Trier has been very quiet since the 2018 serial killer black comedy The House That Jack Built.
His return is a step backward, a return to one of his early successes, TV series The Kingdom. 24 years on he has concocted a belated conclusion; five new episodes to add to the eight of the first two seasons.
Following in the footsteps of Twin Peaks, the original was a surreal mix of medical soap opera and horror movie, following the lives of staff and patients in The Kingdom hospital, a marvel of modern technology haunted by the ghosts of the bleaching pond it was built over.
Kingdom fuses absurdist humour and soap opera parody with genuine menace. But while the original 90s incarnation did this with enough of a straight face that Stephen King was inspired to do an underappreciated American remake, Exodus is very meta and self-referential, very Larky Von Trier.
It starts with a disgruntled viewer (Jorgensen) complaining about how unsatisfactory the series conclusion in episode 8 was, and checking herself into the actual, modern-day Kingdom hospital. She’s there to give the mystery a proper ending, but when she asks about it the staff complain about Von Trier and his stupid programme.
An intricate knowledge of those first 8 episodes isn’t essential. There are black-and-white flashbacks to the original to prompt you, but for the most part the programme isn’t taking itself seriously enough for you to bother about it.
The look is distinctively LVT. The use of urine-yellow filters harks back to his earliest films, while the drab home movie lighting is reminiscent of his Dogma period.
It may be an innovative piece but its appeal, like most successful TV dramas, is the observance of procedural rituals: you tune in each week for the theme tune, the aerial shots of the Kingdom hospital that serve as scene transitions, the closing credits where Von Trier appears to deliver a little homily direct to the audience.
The show’s stated theme is the arrogance of science and medicine but Exodus is so parodic, so self-reflective, it's doubtful it has any meaning. If it is about anything it is the vacuousness of narrative. Like any good soap opera, there is the appearance of purpose, that these characters and situations are moving towards some destination whereas, in reality, they are going around in circles. It's busy going nowhere.
Directed by Lars Von Trier. Starring Bodil Jorgensen, Mikael Persbrandt, Lars Mikkelsen, Nicholas Bro, Tuva Novotny and Udo Kier. 5 Episodes streaming at Mubi.com across December. Running time: 300 mins.
Go to http://www.halfmanhalfcritic.com/ for a review of the Criterion Collection blu-ray release of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights.
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